Associated PressBarack Obama and Hillary Clinton appear together on June 25.

The "big story" at the Democratic National Convention in Denver this week continues to be Hillary Clinton versus Barack Obama.

As if a convention where a major party is getting ready to nominate an African-American for president for the first time in history needed another storyline.

But Staten Island officials and others we spoke with this morning told us that the Hillary-Obama friction isn't as bad as the national press and TV network pundits are making it out to be.

"I'm not hearing it," Assemblyman Mike Cusick (D-Mid-Island) told us at the New York delegation breakfast in the Sheraton Downtown Hotel. "And I'm not just giving you the party line. I have a lot of friends in the New York delegation, and in other delegations. I think it's just something for other people to talk about."

Hillary will address the convention tonight. New York Democratic chair June O'Neill announced at the breakfast this morning that the senator will officially release her delegates tomorrow at 1 p.m. Mountain Time.

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn/Queens), a likely 2009 candidate for mayor, agreed that the Hillary-Obama dustup was much ado about nothing.

"For 95 percent of the people at this convention, this talk is going on at some other level," Weiner told us at the breakfast. "Everybody's getting along. Everybody wants to win."

Weiner said that Hillary is truly in a "no-win situation."

"The great untold story of this convention is that Hillary told Obama's people: I'll talk about whatever you want [in her speech]," Weiner said. "Think of her position: If she goes to the convention, she's accused of upstaging Obama. If she doesn't go, it's a sign of disrespect. The truth is, she's been more helpful to Barack than any other losing candidate has ever been."

Denis Hughes, a Port Richmond native who is head of the state AFL-CIO, said the Hillary-Obama spat "is not really a story."

"It's not real at all," Hughes told us at the Sheraton. "Of course there's some disappointment among Hillary's supporters. Some of them were looking to be put into positions in the new administration in ways New Yorkers had never seen before."

But Hughes said that whatever hard feelings do exist "aren't going to make a difference" in the general election versus Republican John McCain.

"It's not a lot of people who are feeling this way," he said. "Presidential elections are about ideology and points of view. With such a gap between the Democrats and Republicans this year, whatever's going on between Hillary and Obama is not worth considering."